Halloween III: Season of the Witch is now streaming on Peacock. As the only entry in the Halloween franchise to not feature Michael Myers, the movie has always been the black sheep of the family, but is now able to find a whole new audience and get the reappraisal many believe it deserves.
Released in 1982, Halloween III was panned on its release, and became a box office disaster thanks to a lot of misinterpretations about the original intention of the Halloween franchise. While the first two movies told the complete story of Michael Myers, Laurie Strode, and Dr. Loomis, fans expected that the Halloween name immediately meant the resurrection of these characters. Therefore, they were hugely disappointed to discover that the third installment was a new standalone story that had no connection to John Carpenter’s original tale.
This was intentional on the filmmakers’ part, as after Halloween II ended with the deaths of Michael Myers and Loomis, the franchise was supposed to take the form of an anthology series, with new directors coming in with their own Halloween tales to tell. Whether it wasn’t quite clear enough in the marketing or people just assumed that the franchise name would mean a direct continuation, the idea of the Halloween franchise without Michael Myers did not go down well.
What is Halloween III: Season of the Witch About?
Halloween III takes place far away from Haddonfield, instead setting its story in Santa Mira, California. Led by Tom Adkins as Dr. Dan Challis, the story sees Challis attempting to solve the murder of one of his patients. Accompanied by the dead patient’s daughter, the pair find themselves embroiled in a sinister plot being concocted by Silver Shamrock Novelties to use ancient powers to resurrect the powers of witchcraft on Halloween night. The film features some horrifying moments, and gruesome scenes involving some novelty masks that stay with you long after the movie ends. However, for audiences at the time of its release, it simply wasn’t the slasher movie they had expected.
Despite Carpenter and co-creator Debra Hill intending the Halloween franchise to become a series of different stories that all take place on All Hallow’s Eve, after the release of Halloween III, that plan was quickly changed by Miramax. The franchise lay dormant for several years, and when it returned in 1988, the studio let everyone know that their favorite Shatner mask-wearing serial killer was back by titling the movie, Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers.
Despite going through three subsequent reboots, the Halloween franchise has continued to put Michael Myers front and center, just as fans requested. However, 1998’s soft-reboot of H20: 20 Years Later, which brought back Jamie Lee Curtis for her first return to the series, and its sequel Halloween: Resurrection, Rob Zombie’s remakes of the original Halloween movies, and David Gordon Green’s divisive trilogy (which included Curtis’ second return) all ultimately failed to deliver anything close to John Carpenter’s original movie. This begs the questions of what would have happened if the studio had continued with the anthology idea despite Halloween III’s poor reception.
Whether the powerful first appearance of Michael Myers would have ensured the character always remained present in the consciousness of cinemagoers, or whether he would have slipped into cinema history forever, is something we just don’t know. One thing that has become clear over time, is that Halloween III: Season of the Witch may have been a box office bomb, but it was never the weakest Halloween movie.
Halloween III: Season of the Witch
is now available to stream on Peacock.
